10 Awesome Sci-Fi Twists You Never Saw Coming

When The Matrix first hit theaters, moviegoers didn't know what they were getting themselves into. The previews managed to keep one aspect of the movie a secret, and in doing so, the Wachowskis managed to hide one of the biggest twists to hit science fiction films in years.

Looking back, we all know what the Matrix is and how it works within the story of the films, but when the movie first arrived in 1999, who could have seen the twist, which was revealed pretty quickly in the film's first act?

Not only was Neo trapped in the Matrix, but he had also been for his entire life, and he didn't even know it. In fact, almost the entirety of the human race was trapped in a virtual world and didn't know it—all so a species of sentient machines could have a continuous energy source in the form of farmed human bodies.

This revelation wasn't clear until Neo took the red pill, and the entire structure of the film completely flipped. It wasn't some noir '90s action flick and was instead a dystopian future, rock 'em, sock 'em robot war between the free humans and their robotic overlords. It made for a far better movie than the trailers suggested, and there wasn't a fan who was upset about the trickery when reality was revealed in The Matrix.